


the girl with golden hair

by watfordbird33



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-05 01:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10294223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watfordbird33/pseuds/watfordbird33
Summary: She doesn't want to be someone else's happy ending. She wants to write her own.





	

Agatha is the definition of misunderstood.

She used to be the girl everyone else was jealous of. And she used to love it, too. She wasn’t afraid to admit she liked attention. Not afraid to admit she was proud, and noble, and beautiful. 

Now, though, she’s on the outskirts. Thoroughly misunderstood. She’s nobody, nobody, and she’d rather duck the stares than meet them.

She used to be the girl with golden hair. And she used to love it, too. She wasn’t afraid to toss it. To brush it. To play with it constantly.

Now, though, she wears her hair up. Ties it tight. Someday, maybe, she’ll cut it off, but right now she’s too afraid.

It’s the kind of fear that fits in the same category as how she feels about magic. Irrational, uncomfortable. A kind of deep, coppery drag. She wishes, sometimes, with that coppery drag of regret, that she hadn’t left her wand behind. She dreams of mending broken glasses and healing broken bones. She remembers how easy it was. She wonders why she left.

But then she recalls all the blood, and the Mage’s wild eyes, and Baz clutching Penny by the White Chapel. Both of them uncaring. Both of them misunderstanding. Just running. Running for Simon, running to Simon. Running to save Simon.

Agatha ran the other way.

 

In the comfort of her apartment, hung with bland prints and nondescript tapestries, she sleeps. Lucy sleeps, too, close enough to touch. Sometimes curled into the space Agatha’s turned-in body makes.

As Agatha sleeps, she dreams. She dreams of Baz. There’s sleek fang and cold eye and red blood, and she wears a white lace dress. The kind she used to wear, before.

He's chasing her through a forest, the Wavering Wood, and between his labored breaths she hears him hum. Some kids’ tune. A nursery rhyme. He could be casting a spell, except he doesn't have a wand.

She runs and runs. She runs for a long time. Just the whistling of Baz’s breath and his broken humming and her own gasps, pounding in her ears. 

He catches her before she reaches the gate. Across the moat, Simon and Penny are writing at a blackboard, colored chalk, and they don't look up when Agatha screams.

(She dreams so clearly. She screams so loud.)

It's always the damsel’s job to scream. And she is the damsel. She always has been. Proud and beautiful and one-sided and scared and misunderstood. 

She thinks that's all she'll ever be, too. So she lets her boyfriends take care of her. She lets them hold her and kiss her and tell her what to do. A summer after Simon, she loses her virginity with the latest. It was the wrong decision. She knows it as soon as it's over. But she lets him stroke her hair and draw her close. He's kind. He’s the kindest boy she’s ever known.

It doesn't matter.

She realizes, then, that she can’t go on like this.

So she goes out and she buys herself the most ass-kicking pair of boots she can find. They’re knee-high, and solid black. She tucks her jeans into them and puts her hair up high, and she feels more solid, then. Less misunderstood.

She breaks up with the guy. He says he understands. He kisses her on the cheek, and it's a good breakup. It's okay.

Her mother offers to pay for college, but Agatha declines. She gets a job waiting tables, and one exercising the horses at a nearby racetrack. They won’t let her ride fast, and to be honest, she doesn’t really want to. Instead she keeps herself to trots and canters, and she leans into the curves with her hair flying out behind her like a spell.

She gathers tips and checks. She pulls from her savings account. She pays her debts. 

In June of the following year, she slides on her boots and shoulders her purse and she goes to register at UCLA. They’re welcoming. Impressed with her acceptance essay, about what it means to run away. They wear bright California smiles and preppy slacks. She feels at home, not dependant on her boyfriends. Not hanging on her mother’s arm. No longer the damsel in distress. 

Just Agatha. 

Agatha the scholar. Agatha the warrior. 

Agatha with the ass-kicking boots. 

(Agatha who ran.)

And Agatha who won’t run anymore.


End file.
